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Rereading The Handmaid’s Tale: Parts I-II
In the more than three decades since the publication of The Handmaid’s Tale in 1985, Margaret Atwood has maintained that it and her other works are more speculative fiction than science fiction: “For...
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Rereading The Handmaid’s Tale: Parts III-IV
Now that we’ve been introduced to the Republic of Gilead… how do you survive? Just as Offred explores her room (her room) in sections, so do we begin to fill in the edges of her life as a Handmaid:...
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Rereading The Handmaid’s Tale: Parts V-VI
The moon is full and it is time for the Ceremony. Or at least, the first part of the Ceremony, which is waiting on the Commander. While these sections take place entirely in the Commander’s household,...
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Rereading The Handmaid’s Tale: Parts VII-VIII
Ofwarren fulfills her purpose on the Birth Day, the kind of day that is hoped for by all of Gilead and that brings the Handmaids together to help bring new life into the Republic. Later, Offred finds...
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Rereading The Handmaid’s Tale: Parts IX-X
May(day) leads to June (a secret name) turns into summer, filled with ripeness and temptation. Inside the Commander’s household, Offred becomes a mistress; outside of it, she becomes a confidante and...
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Rereading The Handmaid’s Tale: Parts XI-XII
In this day and age, women try to raise each other up through mentorships, networking groups, alumni connections. In Gilead, it’s through dangerous bargains that feel more like power plays, vague...
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Rereading The Handmaid’s Tale: Parts XIII-XIV
For all that we have lived the Handmaids’ bizarre, horrifying existence for the past three-quarters of this novel, now we come to “these red events, like explosions, on streets otherwise decorous and...
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Rereading The Handmaid’s Tale: Part XV-Historical Notes
It’s our final installment of rereading Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, but the reread itself is not over! After last week’s confrontation, we spend only one more Night with Offred, as she heads...
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Rereading The Handmaid’s Tale: The Legacy of Margaret Atwood and Offred
“Novels are not slogans,” Margaret Atwood said in a 1986 New York Times feature in response to assertions that The Handmaid’s Tale was a feminist tract. “If I wanted to say just one thing I would hire...
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Sending a Man to Do a Woman’s Job: How the 1990 Handmaid’s Tale Film Became...
When we first meet Offred in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, she is thisclose to giving up. She’s losing track of time and, worse, hope; she vacillates between the equal temptations of escaping...
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